The Eastern Cape has over time been a significant contributor to the arts in South Africa, as well as the artistic footprint of South Africa internationally. 
This cuts across the whole spectrum of creatives – in music, crafts, fashion, etc., and includes the evolution of innovation in these areas of creative endeavour.

The creative outputs, or products, that have been offered to humanity at large by South African artistes, even where they have universal appeal, bear a distinctive cultural motif traceable to an experience whose roots can be said to be largely ‘rural’. 

‘Rural’ here speaks to more than geographical location, even as such physical positioning is still a relevant factor, particularly for rural regions such as the Eastern Cape and other similar provinces. More importantly rather, ‘rural’ is about shared experience that marks us out as a distinct cultural entity with a unique language, or dialects that accordingly find expression in artistic outputs that manifest such cultural distinctiveness. 

What this means among others is that, even for artistes who no longer reside in rural areas, this rurally-inspired cultural voice will to a degree carry through in their creations, as was the case with the likes of Dyani, Victor Ndlazilwana, Miriam Makeba, Amampondo, Zim Ngqawana and a number of others who straddled different spaces in both the geographic and cultural senses. Many of these artistes grew up in, and came to fame in urban environments, but ensured that the cultural inheritance carried in families, in clan connections, and so on, would find expression in their creations. So that in music, the universal modern instrument could be made to ‘speak’ a distinct language that can be referenced to the artistes origins; so that patterns in design could also reflect such cultural experience, and so on…

It should be against such awareness that Ilima-Labantu should consider locating its interventions in the development, facilitation and promotion of the arts in the Eastern Cape and other areas. 

With specific regard to the idea of ‘Jazz Against Apartheid’, perhaps it would be worth reconsidering what this should mean in the contemporary: 

First, it is about memory, and the preservation of the riches bequeathed us by the generation of Dyani. 

Secondly, I would argue that it should be about carrying into the present a consciousness of struggling for a better world, as was the case with Dyani and other conscious artistes. This means among others, aligning ourselves with the marginalized and fighting for the recognition and due valorisation of the marginalized, a condition that generally characterises the condition of rural regions and citizens. 

Thirdly, still on the marginalized, it suggests a need to consider solidarity and related alliances that would not only expand the voice of the marginalized, but could also open up for exchanges that can push the frontiers of creativity and innovation across spaces, and bring the amplified voice and products of such alliances to the centre, including markets for creative products and presentations.

So, what does all this imply? Having made the point on the traceability of cultural expression to its ‘rural’ roots, we still have a large untapped reservoir of talent, means of expression, etc in our rural region that Ilima-Labantu and development partners should seek to identify, nurture, promote for the invigoration of these spaces, as well promote products presented to the broader human ‘market’…